As war rages outside his classroom, a young Lebanese boys attempts to
pluck up the courage to profess his love for a classmate.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Oualid Mouaness
Starring: Mohamad Dalli, Nadine Labaki, Rodrigue Sleiman, Gia Madi, Ghassan Maalouf
When I was a kid in the 1980s, "Beirut" was a pejorative term used to
describe a "bad" neighbourhood. I lived on an estate that had a bad
reputation, and whenever I invited classmates over to my house they would
usually refuse, claiming my neighbourhood was "like Beirut." Sure, my estate
was home to some dodgy characters, and my friends' fathers would often
suspiciously disappear for long "stretches" of time, but as a resident I
never felt personally endangered living there. None of us could point
Lebanon out on a map, never mind having any understanding of the nuances of
the ongoing conflict in the region - it was just a place that chain-smoking
presenters on the News kept telling us was a hellhole. Ironically, this was
a time when Ireland was viewed by many foreigners in similar fashion to the
Lebanon. When immigrants began arriving in Dublin en masse in the '90s, I
would often be asked what it was like to grow up in Ireland at the height of
"The Troubles", and I would have to politely explain that with the odd
exception, "The Troubles" had as much impact on the average Dubliner as it
did on a resident of Dallas or Dusseldorf. Like my neighbourhood, my country
had a bad reputation, but for me it was just where I lived, and I had as
good a childhood as anyone could hope for.
I wonder if the residents of Beirut were aware that strangers in far off
lands were employing the name of their city in such a demeaning manner.
With his directorial debut, 1982, Oualid Mouaness draws on his childhood in a corner of the
world that like Ireland, was viewed with pity by the rest of the world. Just
as "The Troubles" was something I only saw on the News, for 10-year-old
Wissam (Mohamad Dalli), the Lebanese civil war is just something he
occasionally hears about on the radio. As a resident of East Beirut, the war
- six years old at this point - is considered a West Beirut problem.
Even as the sound of bombs grow less distant, Wissam's mind is occupied by
a more pressing West Beirut problem. He's madly in love with classmate Joana
(Gia Madi), but can't pluck up the courage to profess his feelings.
As she lives in West Beirut and checkpoint crossings between the disparate
halves of the city are rumoured to soon be shut off, Wissam knows he needs
to act quickly before his school is inevitably shut down, but he can only
bring himself to leave an anonymous note in Joana's locker, leading to his
nerdy friend Majid (Ghassan Maalouf) being wrongly identified as
the culprit. When Israeli and Syrian fighter planes begin duelling in the
skies above the school, the kids are rounded onto buses, and Wissam knows he
must act quickly or possibly lose Joana forever.
Using a civil war as the backdrop for a coming-of-age romance runs the risk
of being exploitative and offensive, but Mouaness hits on a truth about
the combination of resilience and ignorance that gets kids through such
times. At time of writing we're in the middle of a pandemic that has already
claimed more civilian lives than WWII in most countries, but children have
been sent to school through most of it. I imagine for most kids, COVID-19 is
as "The Troubles" was for me, something you hear adults talking about but
which has no effect on your own day to day concerns. As we watch the final
act of 1982, in which worried teachers scramble to get their young charges onto buses
and back to the uncertainty of their homes, it's unbearably tense because we
fear for their safety, but also because we're so invested in Wissam's quest
to spill his guts to Joana. In the grand scheme of things, this is a
trifling matter, but for Wissam it means everything, and as we're currently
seeing with COVID-19, the relatively silly little things that get us through
the day become all the more important in times of crisis.
Wissam's story is offset against the damaged relationship between two of
his teachers - Yasmine (Nadine Labaki) and Joseph (Rodrigue Sleiman). The former has buried her head in the sand where the war is concerned,
her naivete highlighted when a young pupil has to tell her she should keep
the classroom's windows open in case an explosion makes the glass shatter.
The latter is immersed in the conflict, a transistor radio constantly tuned
to the News pressed to his ears at all times. Their differing attitudes to
the state of their country threatens to tear them apart until the bombs
arrive on their doorstep and Yasmine realises the war isn't going to go away
just because she ignores it. Boy, it's crazy how much this scenario mirrors
the COVID-19 crisis, which has spawned its own civil war of sorts, fought
(thankfully) mostly online between factions cherry-picking "science" to suit
their political agenda.
Mouaness has achieved something of a marvel with his remarkably
accomplished debut. He's crafted a story set in a part of the world
synonymous with hardship, but from the first frame it's clear he's not
interested in our pity. The opening montage of drone shots paints Beirut as
a place of stunning natural and architectural wonder (and in the midst of an
Irish winter it made me envious of its baking sun), and when his camera
settles on a school playground we quickly forget the film's unique setting
as it focusses on a story of universal concern, of one person trying to find
the words to tell someone else they're glad they exist. As COVID-19 has made
us all a little more aware of our mortality, and that of our loved ones,
Wissam's romantic odyssey is one we can all get behind.
